Image Gallery: FX Wiz Vincent Guastini Discusses His Recent Projects
Josh Millican
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Vincent Guastini Effects and Design Studio (who has been busy before and during the Coronavirus pandemic) just released some of his more recent work and projects. Among them is this month’s release of Attack of The Unknown which just hit digital platforms on August 28th from Gravitas Ventures. Directed by Brandon Slagle the practical aliens have been a standout.
Synopsis:
A SWAT team transporting a crime boss gets trapped inside a Los Angeles detention center during an alien invasion.
Think Precinct 13th meets Independence Day and that’s what you got. A bunch of alien creatures attack a police station after invading the world. The police are hiding in a stronghold and holding a very powerful drug lord (played by Robert LaSardo) hostage.
Vincent says after having worked for the Vegas-based film company Mahal Empire on Art Of The Dead, they asked him to come back and do their alien designs and creatures. “So he came up with as many cool alien ideas and designs we could possibly come up with,” he explains. “I basically wanted to go retro with the look so I came up with a 1950s style retro-inspired design with a modern look to the aliens, and threw in a little bit of Giger and as an homage with a little splash of Mars Attacks. And to top off the cherry on the cake? A slimy clawed face-hugger hand that can shoot out tentacles and suck brains. For the queen alien, I recreated a monster from the first film I first worked on in my career to pay homage to a guy that hired me in the biz; before I worked with Dick Smith I worked with New Jersey-based artist John Dods, on the now-classic movie, Spookies, so taking his brilliant design of the main spider creature in that film we made it the Queen Alien in Attack Of The Unknown. The other aliens, the worker bees, were sculpted by crew member Cameron Mc Peter’s from a Carlos Villa design.
“From that point on in my free time I made and built the alien suits, helmets and created the creature heads both in silicone and foam. I did all the construction myself from paint to sewing in my free time, for 3 months as I worked on other shows at the shop during the day. It was a fun movie to work on and I’m pleased with how they came out. 2019 has been kind of nuts.
“Before the virus, I was out of LA doing a project back East I had a full slate of films a few even being werewolf movies,” he continues. “One being Hunters Moon starring Thomas Jane, and directed by Michael Caissie. It was a full-blown practical werewolf that was over 8 feet tall. The director wanted to go the Jaws approach to seeing the monster. Another werewolf we were doing at the same time was early prelim designs for Max Landis’s remake of American Werewolf. He loved the look of the new Wolf and with his guidance, we came up with a look he loved. I followed his direction as in doing a hyped-up version of Rick Baker’s iconic look. Hopefully, someday I can show what we had in mind. As of now the movie might get going at some point with a new group of people and some of the same producers.
“Another crazy movie we worked on in 2019 was a demon movie called I am Fear directed by Kevin Shulman starring Kristina Klebe (Hellboy, Tales Of Halloween). She plays a famous journalist in the film who gets kidnapped by terrorists in the Middle East. We later find out she is something else that is not of this world and not human, great film. Think Sicario meets The Exorcist. A demon who kicks the ass of terrorists!
“Another project called Stay Out of The Attic, a movie about Dr. Mengele who is still alive and kept himself going with experimental drugs and has various mutants in his house that he created. Lots of crazy prosthetic mutant make-ups and freaks in that one which was shot in Utah in late 2019.
“Right after I wrapped that film I flew straight to New Jersey and did another heavy prosthetics related movie called The Retaliators produced by Queens of the Stoneage’s Josh Homme who is in the movie as well. With some crazy silicone makeup’s. Sort of a Fight Club meets Se7ven in tonality.
“Right now a few weeks ago we just got finished working on Till Death starring Meagan Fox, doing the gore prosthetics and fake body effects which is shooting in Bulgaria and produced by Avi Leaners Company Millenium Films.
“While working on effects films I’ve been producing some others, ranging from budgets of $2M to just under $5M under my belt. And now I am happy to announce I am in development with The Astronaut which I’m set to direct. It takes place in the 60s. Think The Right Stuff meets District 9 and you get the idea. I was going to get into that after I got back from being out of LA for the last 4 months in late 2019 and then COVID happened. Right now I have one of the producers and finance guys who did The Matrix and Fight Club. He was my first choice after meeting him. There are other companies contacting me now about doing the film. But this is the one producer from The Matrix who is who I want to get it going with. The screenplay was by my good friend Rolf Kanefsky based on a story and concept by me. The heart of it is a love story like American Werewolf or The Notebook. The transformation is more in the vein of The Thing and District 9. I’m hoping once things are finalized will be shooting The Astronaut in early to mid of 2021.”
Are you a fan of Vincent Guastini? Let us know in the comments below or on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram! You can also carry on the convo with me personally on Twitter @josh_millican.
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